Nights on the Train
by salingergurl
Summary: Just some musings on how Peeta and Katniss spent their nights sleeping *innocently* together. This is my first Hunger Games fic. Feedback makes dandelions grow. :
1. Always

Chapter 1: Always

He always knocked softly, once, before opening the door and whispering her name: "Katniss?" The question was always in his voice, even though she always said yes.

He always stepped into the room softly and closed the door quietly, as if they were keeping their sleeping routine a secret but they both knew it was the only way to really manage any sleep, to manage a few hours of relative peace.

Tonight, like always, he was wearing a plain black t-shirt and grey flannel pants. He always slept in pants, even on hot nights, when the train moved through the warmer parts of Panem. Katniss wondered if it was because of his artificial leg but didn't dare to ask. They were trying to ward off nightmares, not re-live them.

He always stood by the bed for a few seconds, just looking at her. She always wanted to reach out for him, to grab his waist and bury her head in his stomach and allow him to wrap those strong arms around her head, shutting out every noise, every sight, everything but that moment. She never did. Instead, she always allowed him to look at her before she asked, simply, softly, always a little doubtfully, "Hold me?"

He always said yes, climbing in bed next to her, putting his body as close to hers as they could manage, wrapping his arms around her, holding her close, and finally breathing out the breath he'd been holding since entering the room, the breath reserved for if she didn't ask, the breath he held each time he looked at her and remembered how beautiful and perfect he thought she was.

He always said, "Goodnight, Katniss." Not because he really believed a good night was possible, but because he wanted to help her to think it might be.

She always settled into him, grateful he agreed again, wondering what she'd do without his arms around her, his heartbeat so close to her own.

"Goodnight, Peeta."


	2. Peeta's Paintings

Chapter 2: Peeta's Paintings

Most nights they didn't talk much. They just held fast to each other and tried to make it until morning. Tonight, though, something was eating away at Katniss, so she broke the usual, peaceful silence. "I don't hate them, Peeta."

"Hate what, Katniss?" he asked, voice full of sleep.

"Your paintings," she said. "I don't hate them. I think they're beautiful. But…"

He took a deep breath. "But they hurt. I know." He leaned up on his elbow from behind her and allowed himself to stroke her hair, tied in its familiar braid, just once. She let him. "It's just... I _have_ to paint them. I can't help it."

She nodded because she understood. He dealt with the nightmares by painting them. She, on the other hand, just kept having the nightmares, over and over again. She turned onto her back so she could look at him, so she could touch his cheek with the backs of her fingers. "I know you can't." As her hand dropped from his face, a quiet moment of understanding passed between them. Only Peeta understood, could ever understand, this part of her life.

"They're not all of the games. I paint you sometimes. Not you in the arena but _you_. Just Katniss."

"Why?" she asked, turning her gaze toward the ceiling. It was a stupid question.

"I can't help it," Peeta said, smiling as he caught her glance back at him for a second. A tiny laugh slipped from Katniss' mouth and into the air between them. A perfect sound in their imperfect world. She was grateful he hadn't gone into another declaration of his undying love, forcing her to think about whether such things were even possible. She just wanted to say she was sorry. Leave it to Peeta to know exactly what to say, she thought.

"Does it help? Painting them? Painting anything?"

Peeta thought about it. "Yes," he began, gazing off at something Katniss could not see. "When I paint, I get lost. Good lost. I remember and forget at the same time. If I'm painting something and it's wrong, or if I mess up, I just wait a while and let it dry. Then I mix a new color and paint over it until I get it right. No one will ever know how much I messed up except me and I only have to tell someone if I want to."

She closed her eyes, thinking. "I wish life was like that sometimes," Katniss said. She opened her eyes and turned to look at him. "That would be nice, huh?"

"Yeah," he said. He allowed himself to brush a loose bit of hair from her forehead. He pressed his lips there, too, briefly.

She let him.


	3. Katniss' True Talent

Chapter 3: Katniss' True Talent

Although his nightmares were usually a quiet kind of terror, one night Peeta woke up screaming. "NOOOOOO!" He was sweating, his heart was racing. This dream was different from the others he usually had about losing Katniss.

In this dream, Peeta had watched his entire family get tortured until their blood covered the well-lit stage where Ceasar Flickman was interviewing him. He could not go to them. But that wasn't when he started screaming.

Katniss walked out on the stage, his beautiful, reckless, protective Katniss, and her eyes held only hatred for him. She was screaming at him, enraged. Blaming him for killing her father in the mine because their fathers had loved the same woman. Blaming him for her sister's name being pulled from the reaping ball, knowing she would volunteer and he could kill her without regret, maybe even with relish. The Capital had done something to her, had taken the Katniss from her, had made her forget all he had shared with her. She did not know how much he loved her; perhaps this Katniss had never known it.

It was worse than her being taken from him. That is what made him start screaming.

The scream woke Katniss up. Her heart began racing to match his, but her first reaction was to protect him. Protect Peeta. She bolted upright, and grabbed him, holding him close. She put her chin on his head, trying to squeeze him inside of herself, to compress him into a place in her chest where she might love him. "Shh, Peeta. I'm right here. I'm right here and I'm not going anywhere. Shh..." She pressed her lips to his golden hair, held him like she held Prim the day their father died.

"Katniss..." He was still shaking, but his heart rate began to slow. "Katniss, you were gone. I mean, you were there but..." He couldn't finish.

"I'm right here, Peeta. I'm not letting go until you say it's okay."

"You were there in my dream, too but... They took you from me. You didn't know me and it was... You didn't know me."

She took a breath and began calmly, "You are Peeta Mellark. You are from District 12. You gave me bread when I was starving. You have a good heart. You were a victor in the 74th Hunger Games. You," she swallowed hard and finished, "You love me."

"Yes." He untangled himself from her, sat up, and looked at her face for the first time since they awoke.

"You help me sleep. I usually help you, too," she finished.

"Katniss, this one was worse than the others. I woke up, and I saw you near me, and I was just more scared. I thought it was real, that you were gone, even if you were next to me." Peeta's eyes were filling but he closed them, and allowed Katniss to guide his head to her lap. He breathed steadily for half a minute, trying to relax but the dream was still terrorizing him. He whispered, "Can you make the dreams be quiet like you did the birds when we were five?"

"You want me to sing to you? To sing you to sleep?"

Peeta stayed quiet as Katniss began to stroke his hair, still wet with the sweat from his terror. She started to hum, softly, an old song from home, but it did little to help him; he could still hear her screaming at him from the dream world. Talking was better so he asked, "Why didn't you make singing your talent?"

"Singing is not for them," she replied. "It's for me. And my father. And for home."

"And for me?" He looked up at her as he asked, daring to open his eyes again.

"And for you." She sighed and settled in, making sure they were both comfortable. She cradled his head again. "This is the song my father used to sing to my mother when they first met. Then my sister and I came along and he'd sing it to all of us. He'd sing us to sleep. It's a song that's older than Panem, he would tell us, by a man called Bob Dylan."

Peeta smiled. "Bob Dylan? What sort of name is that?"

"A poet's name, I guess." Katniss smiled too. Then she began to sing:

_"When the rain is blowin' in your face_  
_And the whole world is on your case_  
_I could offer you a warm embrace_  
_To make you feel my love."_

Peeta's eyes closed again and she felt him relax.

_"When the evening shadows and the stars appear_  
_And there is no one there to dry your tears_  
_I could hold you for a million years_  
_To make you feel my love."_

She began to stroke his hair again.

_"I know you haven't made your mind up yet_  
_But I would never do you wrong_  
_I've known it from the moment that we met_  
_No doubt in my mind where you belong."_

This is my song, Peeta thought. Then he realized Katniss' voice from the dream had finally stopped screaming. His dream was quiet.

_"I'd go hungry, I'd go black and blue_  
_I'd go crawling down the avenue_  
_No, there's nothin' that I wouldn't do_  
_To make you feel my love."_

Because we protect each other, Katniss thought.

_"Though storms are raging on the rollin' sea_  
_And on the highway of regret_  
_Though winds of change are throwing wild and free_  
_You ain't seen nothing like me yet."_

Peeta's breathing was steady again and he was heavy with sleep in her lap. She finished the song quietly, really processing the words for the first time in a long time.

_"I could make you happy, make your dreams come true_  
_Nothing that I wouldn't do_  
_Go to the ends of the Earth for you_  
_To make you feel my love."_

Maybe it's true, she thought, before dropping off to join Peeta in sleep.


	4. Day Dreams

**Thanks to all who've reviewed and put this story on their alerts. Feels great to be writing again. :)**

Chapter 4: Day Dreams

Some nights, when neither could sleep, they talked. They talked about what had happened that day or what they remembered about home. They were just trying to assemble some sort of existence outside of the memories of the arena and all that had occurred there; they were trying, desperately, to be "normal." To remember life outside of the Capital and its over-the-top hyper-reality. To exist outside of the last few months.

This night, they were sitting in the dining car; drinking a cup of tea and watching Panem pass by the windows. It was mostly darkness.

"Do ever have good dreams?" Katniss asked.

"Not at night, but sometimes during the day. Occasionally I have nice daydreams."

"About what?" She got up and moved to sit next to him, eager to hear a story as good as Peeta himself.

"About the end of all of this. What life would be life if there was no more Capital, no more Hunger Games." He paused, and shifted to look directly at her. "In the dreams, I'm back home in District 12. It smells like yeast and warmth in the house. I'm painting. There's music and laughter. There are children playing and they are not afraid."

Katniss looked into his eyes, hoping she, too, could share the vision of the future held there. She could not see it.

Peeta continued, "The children are mine, two of them. A girl and a boy. She is strong and beautiful like her mother, and he is full of life; he loves to run. They hug me. My wife comes home with a wild turkey for dinner because she is a brilliant hunter. She hugs me too. I feel warm. And loved. And…" he smiled, "free."

Katniss tried to keep it light so she said, "Your wife sounds pretty great." She knew Peeta had chosen his words carefully, had constructed his vision with enough distance that she could believe, if she wanted to, that his wife could be someone else. She appreciated this.

"I'm sure she will be," he smiled, "if I can find someone to have me."

"You? You're a victor in the Hunger Games. That will never get old. I'm sure there are tons of girls in District 12 who'd put their name in the reaping ball twenty extra times to have a chance with you." There was a smile in her words.

"Maybe." He looked pained for a moment, then smiled. His eyes did not.

They sat together in silence for a while, sipping tea and listening to the steady hum of the train. Katniss broke the silence again when the question just under the surface of her boiled over. "Do you really think any of that is possible? That we can live in District 12 and be happy and free?"

"I have to. It's who I am. I want a wife, and a family, and a life where I can be happy. No one can take that dream away from me, no matter how hard they try. When I thought I would die…" He swallowed and went on, "when I thought I would die in the arena, it all became very clear."

"I'm never getting married. Or having kids." Katniss just blurted it out, she couldn't help it. She had expressed the same thing to Gale once, but telling Peeta was somehow different. She didn't know why.

"No? Well, never say never, Katniss." Peeta smiled, not wanting to fight, but then he noticed the look in Katniss' eyes.

"It's not worth it. What does love get you in this world, Peeta? My father died in a coal mine and it nearly killed my mother, too. I learned to take care of her and Prim because I had to. And then my mother had to send me off to the Arena to die, just like your mother and twenty-three other mothers this year. And it will happen again next year, and it's happened for seventy-three years before that. What does love get you in this world but fear and heartache?" She was no longer talking to him, she was talking to some other, someone who wasn't there.

"But Katniss," Peeta said, putting down her teacup and taking her hand, "think of how much you love Prim. Wasn't she worth taking care of? Isn't she still worth it?"

Yes, Katniss thought. Prim is worth it. Prim is why I'm here right now. Well, Prim, and Peeta. "I would do anything for Prim."

"I know you would. And she would do anything for you, if only you'd let her. Didn't she help you win in the arena? Didn't love help _us_win in the arena? Love isn't so terrible, Katniss."

"But a husband? Kids? This is no world for kids Peeta." She felt the prickles of tears in her eyes but refused to let them become tears. "Look at what happened to us. To Rue. To the others."

"Come here," Peeta said, reaching out to cradle her head against his chest, to hold her tightly in his arms. This, at least, he could do for her. "Katniss, I think things are changing. I can feel something happening in Panem; we felt it in District Eleven. Maybe one day the world will be safe for our kids. I just... I have to believe that it will get better. That my daydreams will become real. I have to…" He stroked her hair and finished, "Otherwise, they win."

Katniss liked that she could hear his heart beating in his chest as she rested her head against it, as she let him hold her there. She wrapped her arms around him, too, and squeezed. "Thank you," she said into his t-shirt.

"For what?"

She moved away from him and looked sincerely into his brown eyes. "Thank you for not being a piece in their Games. For believing that your dreams are possible. For being the best person I know." She rested her forehead against his and watched him close his eyes and breathe her in, one deep breath. Then she stood up and walked back to her room to sleep, leading Peeta by the hand.


	5. Almost Home

"How is he?" Katniss found she was actually curious to know. It was as if she was starting to really care about Haymitch; he was, in a strange way, sort of like family now.

Peeta walked over to the bed, his black t-shirt and grey pants full of dark water spots, and flopped on his back next to Katniss. "I cleaned him up, got him into bed. He's sleeping now." He paused and looked over at her, smiling, "I'm surprised you can't hear him snoring."

A brief smile appeared in Katniss' eyes before it faded into concern. "He seemed... better lately," Katniss sighed, settling into Peeta. "I mean, I know why District One was hard for me." She swallowed, thinking of Glimmer and of Marvel, two people who no longer existed because of her choices but, ultimately, because of the Capitol. "But I wonder why District One affected him so much?"

"We've been on this train a long time, Katniss. Maybe he just wants to go home." Peeta looked over at her. "You want to go home." It wasn't an accusation; he could just read her. He smiled and moved a piece of stray hair from her forehead. "What's the first thing you're going to do when we get there?"

"Hug Prim. Hug Gale and my mom." Her eyes were sparkling as she thought of it. "Go hunting." She turned to look at him. "But... He's not eager to go home. Neither are you."

"You're the only one of us that has a life back there." The truth of this statement seemed to mute the other sounds in the room for a moment. Katniss did not know what to say. Peeta lay back down careful to keep space between them.

Katniss was defensive. "I can't help that, Peeta. It's not my..."

"I'm not blaming you, Katniss," Peeta interrupted. "I'm happy for you. People in District Twelve count on you. They love you." He paused. "Haymitch and I don't have that. Everyone I love-we love-" he sighed, "is here." He reached out to touch her hand as it lay between them, but she moved it, turned her back to him, and curled in on herself.

"What about your father?"

"My father... is a good man. He works hard but he's broken. He's broken like so many people back home. Like Haymitch. There's nothing back there for Haymitch except for whatever haunts him." Peeta, exhausted, ready for sleep, and hoping their talk was over, scooched himself toward Katniss slowly and he heard her whisper: "At least you have a father."

Peeta reached his hand out, wanting to comfort her but not knowing how. This was a hurt he could not share with her; this he could not help her to heal. This was why he held her at night, and why she allowed him to. Finally, he cupped her shoulder and when she didn't move away, brought his hand down her arm, grasped her fist in his hand, and brought the bundle to her chest, to the place where her broken heart still managed to beat. He curled around her, his other arm between them. For once he did not know what to say.

After a time, she whispered again, "Do you think that will happen to us? That we'll end up like Haymitch?" This was the first time Peeta had ever heard fear in her voice. It hurt Peeta deeply.

He brought his head up to whisper in her ear, "He didn't have anyone, Katniss. But that's not us. We still have people we love. You have Prim, and your mom, and Gale." He allowed himself to bury his nose in her hair, to press his lips to it. It was so rare that he felt stronger than her. "And you have me and Haymitch too. And now Haymitch has us." He paused and squeezed her, hoping he had helped her somehow, that he had said the right thing.

"Who do you have?" He barely processed that she'd asked before she untangled herself from him and rolled over, seeking his eyes. She reached up and cupped his cheek with her hand. "Who do you have, Peeta?"

"Don't be silly, Katniss. I have everyone I need right here." He grabbed her hand and held it. "And I promise, no matter what, I won't be like him."

"But how can you know that, Peeta? The Capital... they can do whatever they want."

"They can try, but it won't work." He paused, "You're so much stronger than him, than me. And you have so much love waiting for you..." She felt him press his lips to their entwined fingers. "That'll never happen to you." She saw the truth in his eyes. "I'll never let that happen to you." She believed him. "We watch out for each other, right?"

She settled in to sleep.


	6. The Engagement

**A/N: This is the final chapter. Thanks to those who read, commented, followed, loved, etc. I really appreciate all of it. I hope you enjoyed this story as much as I enjoyed writing and sharing it.** :)

Although she was wrapped safely in Peeta's arms, Katniss could not sleep. She was trying to avoid rolling over and moving around because she didn't want to disturb him, but both her body and mind were buzzing with a low hum of energy. She was a little surprised it hadn't woken Peeta already.

Although it had been her idea, she had not really been prepared for their "engagement." What began as a whispered idea in the night shaped up into a real plan that followed them to the Capitol. She knew it was coming, and still it was a surprise. She knew how she must compose her face, what she must say, but she didn't realize how much Peeta's speech would resonate inside her chest, even hours later. It was stupid of her, really, to underestimate the power of Peeta's way with words. She should have known.

_Katniss_, he had begun as he took her hand in both of his. _Ever since I was five you've been the only one._ She had never seen him look nervous in front of the cameras; there was no need for it now. But still, his wavered slightly and he swallowed thickly. _You say I brought you back to life with the bread that day, but it was really you who saved me_. He paused, swallowed again, and went on. _Katniss, you saved me from my mother's disappointment. You saved me from near-death in The Arena. You saved me from ever feeling alone. You saved me from a life without love._

Why did she remember every sentence, every breath he took while saying them, so clearly? At that moment, on that stage, she allowed herself to look at him, to really see him. She shouldn't have because she saw what she was most afraid of seeing: he meant every word. As with so many moments in their "relationship," Peeta was convincing. For him, this was almost real. His eyes were even getting wet. Katniss looked away just as he dropped to his knee, an ancient tradition they still practiced in District 12. He looked up at her.

_Katniss, I want to use the rest of my life to thank you and repay you for everything you are to me. I want to be able to look at you every morning. I want to proudly call you 'wife,' if you'll let me. Katniss Everdeen, will you marry me?_

And now she had to try and sleep? After that? Right. She'd rather give Haymitch a cold shower by herself right now. Or have every tiny hair on her body ripped from its home by her prep team. As she lay next to Peeta, mind and body churning, she realized that sleep was not a possibility, but maybe some warm milk would do the trick. She tried to get up, slowly and carefully extricating herself from the arms wrapped comfortably around her. She was unsuccessful, though, and he woke up.

"What's wrong? Nightmare?" His voice was sleep-dazed and he squeezed her tighter for a second, perhaps trying to reassure Katniss that he was there.

Sort of, she thought. "Did you mean all that stuff you said on TV? About me saving you?"

"Katniss..." he sighed, fully awake now but not ready to have this talk. "You know the answer to that question."

She turned over to face him and looked into his eyes. She put her palm on his cheek and leaned in to kiss his forehead. She thought about how Haymitch was right; she would never deserve him. She thought about all that he had said and done over the past months and how it had all been for her. She thought about that rainy day when he had defied his mother and tossed Katniss life. She thought about the dandelion, how it looked like the sun that had been quietly but constantly part of her life since that day. She thought of Peeta's hair in that sunlight, how it _was_ that sunlight.

She could do worse than be loved by the boy with the bread. Much, much worse.

"Yeah, I do." She whispered, before she turned back over, settled her back against him, waited for his arms to enclose her, and fell soundly asleep.


End file.
